


Water Lillies

by smarriiouxX



Category: Clone High
Genre: Clone High - Freeform, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Other, Slow Burn, and he's also a depressed artist, claude monet likes dudes, gandhi is bi, i rly admire the guy, pls give me tags i can use, self insert because i can, this is soft, van gogh has a best friend, yes monet is my clone oc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26772901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarriiouxX/pseuds/smarriiouxX
Summary: Water Lilies is a series of approximately 250 oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840–1926).Claude Monet, a lover of nature at heart, soon makes friends with Gandhi, who is nothing like him. They clash, yes, but soon a friendship blossoms, and maybe a bit more than that...
Relationships: Gandhi/ Claude Monet
Kudos: 13





	1. Who is Claude Monet?

**Author's Note:**

> hi so this is gonna b the introduction to claude monet, my clone oc??? idk man is it an oc?? it isnt but it is?? anyways yes this is oc x cannon w gandhi bc i love him, also brief mentions of jfgogh hehehehe  
> this takes place in 2019 bc i need hozier to make some sort of appearance

Oscar-Claude "Clau" Monet, 17 y.o.

Birthday: November 14

Height: 5'11

Zodiac: Scorpio 

Monet is the president of the Botany Club (yes i made it up i think its nice also van gogh is in it) and his favourite type of plant is any aquatic plant. He often does watercolors, since getting water is easy and its easier to carry around compared to oil paints. 

He tends to paint the nature around the school, if he can find any, but he mostly paints the school garden and his own.

His foster moms (if jfk can have gay foster dads, monet can have lesbian moms) are kind women, one of them is even a painter herself. They often paint with their son.

He doesn't paint portraits often, but he is relatively popular since he is kind and people just... like him. Unlike his best friend, Vincent Van Gogh, who is often bullied and pulled to the shadows. Clau defends him all the time, and they hang out always.

His right eye has only 40% vision and he has Protan Color Blindness, in which all warmer tones look highly similar, hence why he often paint in blue hues. His glasses help him see colors, but he still enjoys painting with blue. It's his favorite color, after all. His asthma is also pretty bad; he can't run or do some basic exercise without needing his inhaler. (monet did go blind when he was older, and even after surgery he could only see blues and purples. also he died of lung cancer, hence the asthma thing)

He's AWFULLY hairy, and he's pretty self-conscious about it, so he often wears long sleeves. He wears a cerulean turtleneck sweater and a navy trench coat that he never buttons up because he likes the way the wind flows, making the coat flip-flap. His eyes are brown, but his right is blurry, and he has very soft, long, curly brown hair and quite a short beard. He also wears grey cargo pants and blue Vans (bi icon babeyyy).

An absolute fan of Hozier, his fave song is "In the Woods Somewhere". He's soft-spoken and barely raises his voice, and is so kind and calm. 

He believes that opposites attract. I'll leave it at that.

(hope yall enjoy this fic that might take weeks to finish but ill try my best ;v;)


	2. Impression, Sunrise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these boys are bi!! good for them, good for them  
> haha yes i finally update this, here have some soft domestic mommy bonding time bc his moms r babie.  
> also i might start working on some principal scudworth x shadowy figure oneshots bc they are soft also shadowy figure is trans so trans rights my guys!! headcannon: butlertron is non binary 😳😳😳

His backpack was full with his essentials:

1\. his sketchbook with a big sunflower on the cover (a gift from Van Gogh),

2\. his pencil case, full to the brim with his inking pens and his... 3 pencils. He never was one of those who used a pencil for each detail of a drawing,

3\. his watercolor set, the blues and purples worn out already ("I can kinda see my color palette", he thought to himself),

4\. his school books, that were stained with watercolor paints because he's a bit of a klutz,

5\. and his wallet, a small booth picture of Van Gogh and him in it (his favorite photo).

Backpack on his... well, back, he grabbed his phone and plugged his headphones in, only putting one bud in. As he walked out, he could smell the weird food combinations his Mama prepares. You see, she was an experimental cook, and every day the whole house would be engulfed in all sorts of smells. This morning, it was apple pancakes. Claude was a bit shocked; it was something she's cooked before earlier in the week, and she never did the same meal twice in a week.

"Claude! Are you up, sweetheart?", Mama yelled from the kitchen, just as he was stepping into the living room that connected the stairs to the kitchen. He sees his other Mom (who he calls Mom) watching a TV show, one he doesn't recognize; he's never been one to enjoy TV that much.

"No need to yell, Mariela. He's right here next to me. Morning, kiddo." She stretched out her hand to ruffle his hair, which he accepted gladly. "Now run along before she storms in angry because you haven't said hi to her," she added with a low chuckle.

Claude advanced to the kitchen, where he saw his Mama's signature apron which she never tied behind her back. As he approached her to see how the pancakes were doing, he realized just how tall he had gotten over the summer. Last year, he was just your average 5'7 junior student, and now he was 5'11 and... a senior. The word scared him, because he loved his school, but he brushed it off as soon as Mama turned around and bear-hugged him.

He might've been taller, but he will never be as strong as his Mama.

"¡Ay!, mi niño, estás tan grande. Y tu pelo está larguísimo." Her English... wasn't the best, with her coming to the US from Puerto Rico in her mid-20s just to marry his other Mom, but she tried. 

"Ya, ya, Mama, me estás apretando," he barely manages to mutter. Mama lets go of him and smiles, which he returns.

"I... made you some... pancakes." She was learning little by little, but it made Claude extremely proud to see her speak it.

"I smelled them, thank you so much." He bent over and kissed her forehead, and went to serve himself some pancakes. He gulped them down, and Mama scolded him, saying how "tenía que aprender a comer mejor" and how he is now practically an "adult". 

Finally, it was time to leave for his first day of his... last year of high school. His moms said goodbye at the front door, his Mama giving him a kiss on his cheek and his Mom giving him a huge hug. It was Mom's turn to cry, brushing off the tears as she ruffled her son's hair one last time.

"We love you, kiddo." Her smiles were rare, but they were always genuine.

Trying not to cry as well, he waved goodbye and turned to the sidewalk. Other fellow clones were heading the same way as him, some of them talking or just walking fast, wanting to get there as fast as possible. It struck him how he didn't know anything about how these random strangers (well, not strangers: they had known each other their entire lives, but they had never talked) were coping with their first day. Were they as somber as he was, or were they glad they finally got to leave, that this was their last year?

He looked up his playlist on his phone and click "Shuffle". The walk to school was short, but he enjoyed music too much.

_I had a thought, dear_  
_However scary_  
_About that night_  
_The bugs and the dirt_  
_Why were you digging?_  
_What did you bury_  
_Before those hands pulled me_  
_From the earth?_

As his steps quickened to the beat, the music soon drifted off as he saw the school building in front of him. He quickly composed himself before entering and finally admitting...

"Hello, senior year of Clone High."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes im puertorrican heheheheheheh pr gang so lemme translate  
> ¡Ay!, mi niño, estás tan grande. Y tu pelo está larguísimo. = Oh my sweet boy, you're so big! And your hair is super long.  
> Ya, ya, Mama, me estás apretando, = Now, now, Mama, you're squishing me.  
> "tenía que aprender a comer mejor" = had to learn how to eat better


	3. Morning on the Seine near Giverny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im in computer class while i write this ASDFGDSDF ITS SO BORING  
> anyways enjoy, I'm finally writing gandhi in this 😖😖😖😖

Hundreds of students crowded near the entrance, but Claude was searching for a familiar apricot haired boy. They were so many, and so tall, it took him a few minutes, until he felt a tug on his coat. When he looked down, he saw Vincent Van Gogh's 5'3 self smile gently up at him. Claude hugged him tightly, having to crouch down, which Vinnie returned gladly.

They weren't the most talkative of people, so the walk to their lockers was quiet, only exchanging a few words every now and then. They spent the entire summer together, it wasn't as if they hadn't seen each other in decades. 

They were bummed to find out they had quite different schedules, only sharing AP Art (obviously) and Biology. Soon, the bell rang, and they waved each other goodbye. Claude saw as he ran off, but not to the classroom. Rather, he ran towards... JFK? Vinnie looped his arm around the taller boy's bicep, laughing with him. JFK even bent over to kiss him on the head before they entered the class.

"Huh, so he's got some explaining to do," he thought to himself as he walked towards his first class of the day, which was Calculus. He hated math, and especially Calculus.

He sat down on a desk in the middle row near the back, and took out his notebook. The room was filling slowly, students laughing and yelling at each other, taking the seats near him. Soon, a boy came in, his shirt a bit loose around his skinny frame, and his hoop earring shiny under the room's lights. This said boy sat right next to Claude, and immediately starting cracking up jokes with the guy behind him, who was freakishly tall, and had a full on beard. Claude watched as the small boy gestured and imitated some person he couldn't recognize. It was very amusing to watch, so much so that he even let out a chuckle.

Gandhi turned his eyes to the boy next to him, and was shocked to see none other than Oscar-Claude Monet himself. He looked at the painter, surprised at how much he had changed: his hair was longer, he was way taller, his stubble had grown a bit more so now he had a decent beard. As much as he convinced himself he was straight, he couldn't help but realize just how... hot Monet had gotten. And that low chuckle hadn't helped his problem.

"Hello Gandhi, good to know you haven't changed a bit," Claude said, his voice soft as always, so welcoming. Gandhi wondered how his voice sounded in the morning, all groggy and low, and how it would sound against his ear, his hands gently holding his waist...

"Gandhi? Are you still there? You haven't said anything." With those words, Gandhi woke up from his daydream and managed to form a sentence to the painter.

"Heeeeey, man! Wow, you changed a LOT this summer, hahaha!!" It was hard to hide how red his cheeks were getting, but he managed.

"I'm guessing you mean for the better, right?"

"Duh, man! Like, you look like you should be one of those guys that studies philosophy."

Claude let out a chuckle once more, amused by how the other boy saw him as. A philosophy major? Only in his dreams, he thought.

"Yeah, I went through a bit of a glow-up, one could say."

"A bit? My dude, you're hot as fuck now! I highly doubt it was only a bit."

As soon as he said those words, Gandhi went silent, his face degrees away from melting off. Why did he say that out loud? Why did he have to be so fucking blunt sometimes? Why, why, why. Claude was just as red; he had never thought that Gandhi, off all people, would've said that. Sure, he had made some heads turn around as he walked down the hallway, but... Gandhi calling him hot? 

To his surprise, it made him feel really good, and not the type of good when your teacher compliments your art. No, like... WAY too good.

Claude knew he was bisexual from a while back, more specifically 11th grade, when he started developing feelings for Van Gogh. They were long gone, certainly, but it was an awakening of sorts. He still wasn't open to the entire school, but some people did know, and others suspected it. His mothers were super accepting and even marked the moment he had come out to them in their calendar: September 13. 

So, it wasn't the fact that a guy had called him hot that made had him in shock. It was the fact that the guy who had called him that was GANDHI, off all people.

He wanted to thank him, and ask him if he wanted to hang out later, but when the teacher came in, he looked to the front, hoping his face was as stoic as possible.

The teacher, Mr. Santiago, was going off about how this year was highly important, that this year decides the rest of your life, etc, etc, etc. Nothing Claude found particularly interesting. He was doodling poppies in the margins of his notebook when he felt the corner of a paper on his forearm. Gandhi was handing him a note, and he took it tenderly and opened it softly, as not to rip it.

" _yeah so im sorry abt the hot thing, altho i did mean it_ "

Claude had to hold in the urge to hide the paper in his sketchbook and read it a million times when he got home. Instead, he just smiled at Gandhi, and kept doodling. His poppies were filling the entire margins, but...

Why did they look like hearts now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not me naming the calculus teacher after my best friend whos a math genius 💀💀💀💀💀  
> anyways srry this one was short, its late at night and my motiv is gooone :,))


	4. The Artist's Garden at Giverny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after 11 days am back. u guys can follow my new clone high (+ jojo) ig acc the_van_gogh_kinnie. i just post mondhi (yes that's monet x gandhi) and jfgogh. sou yes that's all pls enjoy thank u :))  
> also this is fluffy and,,, long so beware

"Gandhi. Gandhi! Are you even listening?"

He was laying back against the lockers, his mind lost in thought. It was only when Joan punched his arm that he snapped back to reality.

"Hey, what the fuck man?!"

"You've been staring at nothing for five minutes! Are you okay?"

"...yes." He wasn't.

For some reason, he couldn't get his mind off Monet. God, why did he have to change so much? For the better, of course, there was no doubt about it. Monet looked like a model in his eyes, but he kept refusing to accept that. He is straight, he is straight, he is straight. Well, except for that one time he kissed Abe, although Abe kissed him first. It was weird since none of them pulled away at first. Hell, Gandhi was the first to do so after a minute, but he couldn't tell why he did it: was it because he realized how much he hated it or was it because he believed something so intimate shouldn't happen in public?

So, yes, he wasn't okay. Not at all.

In fact, he was so absorbed he didn't realize Joan had left him by himself. It was lunch period, so she probably went to the cafeteria with Abe, or she went by herself, since Abe was probably busy with Cleo. His feet dragged his body towards the cafeteria, but he bumped into none other than... Claude Monet himself.

"Oh, je suis désolé! I didn't mean to get in your way." His French accent was adorable. Great, just what he needed.

"Hey, it's no problem dude. Were you heading to the cafeteria too?"

"Well, not exactly. I'm actually going to the greenhouse. I would go with Vinnie, pero el cabrón me abandono por el novio."

"What."

"Sorry, I meant that Vincent Van Gogh left with his boyfriend. And abandoned me."

God, he sounded so bitter. He felt really bad, but also intrigued. Van Gogh had gotten a boyfriend? The same guy who had called him crying about how lonely he was, the guy who had painted him naked, had a serious relationship before he did? Wow.

"I could join you if you want."

"You... you mean that, mon ami?"

_Fuck, fuck, why does he have to switch languages he sounds so smart oh fuck_ "Yeah, of course! As much... as much as the thing I said in first period."

It was Monet's turn to get red. So he really DID mean it.

"Well, follow me then!"

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The greenhouse was amazingly kept, with all sorts of flowers blooming everywhere. As far as Gandhi was concerned, there were only two members in the botany club (Monet and George Washington Carver) and it was pretty obvious: on one side, there were peanut plants and a shit ton of laboratory equipment, clearly George's; and on the other side, there were little ponds full of aquatic plants, and rows and rows of tulips and poppies. There was a table there too, paint-splattered and with a lot of paintings everywhere.

"Dios, I'm so sorry for the mess", Monet slurred, frantically moving aside all of his brushes and watercolors, only to dump out more from his bag.

"Dude, wow, don't you have enough already?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, haha, I realize that now. But, these are a different brand, and I like testing them out."

He then turned to find a chair for Gandhi, who was standing there admiring Monet's work, both botanical and artistic. He didn't know much about the original Claude Monet, but from what he had heard, the original had been very fond of his garden in France. The entire room radiated that feeling. His paintings were mostly in blue, with maybe some pinks and yellows. They were amazing, every flower's petals detailed to perfection. 

"Here, I found you a chair. God, I just realized that I barely sit down. It took me five minutes to find this."

"It's fine bro, thank you. Hey, I have a question for you."

"Go on."

"How do you... paint these? Y'know, with you being partially blind AND colorblind."

"It's alright. Don't get me wrong, it's a real challenge, but I got used to it after a while. Besides, the glasses make shit WAY easier."

"Makes sense. Hey, can you teach me? How to paint that is."

Monet laughed. It was the sort of laugh that gets stuck in your head for the entire week because of how beautiful it was.

"Pardon, pardon, mon ami. I can try to teach you, but everyone develops their own style. I can only guide you."

His hands were gentle as he ripped a watercolor paper from his sketchbook and handed it to Gandhi. The urge to rip it in half was tempting, but Monet looked so excited...

"Now, holding a brush is essential to the way you want to paint. All artists hold them differently, but let's start with something simple."

"Yeah, this shit easy man! I really am out there thinking this was hard-" He was interrupted by Monet's hand on top of his, his body towering over him, leaning against him.

"Posture is important too, you know." He said gently against his ear, and Gandhi couldn't even dare to talk. He smelled like flowers, which wasn't surprising. His mouth and his brain tried to conjure up some jokes to make him less tense, but nothing came to mind. It's like he was a completely different person around Monet. It made no sense to him, but it would have to do.

Meanwhile, Monet was trying not to panic. Sure, he had always found Gandhi interesting, to say the least. The way he was so loud and reckless was so... mesmerizing. He wondered how such a small man could have so much energy. But... but now, he was quiet and tense. Was he scaring him off? Was he uncomfortable?

The panic kept flooding him until he felt the smaller boy's back lean back against his torso, much calmer now. "Ok, fine, I have the posture, now how the fuck do you paint?" They both were laughing, and Monet taught him all he knew.

It was a very nice hour, that's for sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> monet is multilingual i should mention that: English, Spanish bc of his mama, and french bc of his clone father  
> the Spanish bit was added by me bc latina i guess uwu  
> je suis désolé! - I am sorry  
> pero el cabrón me abandono por el novio.- but the motherfucker abandoned me to go w his boyfriend


End file.
